The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of twenty-seven newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our first granted patent report of the day we cover a newly detailed single and multi-touch centric patent along with another which covers screen locking based on dual sliders. We close out our report by presenting you with 3 new Apple design patents and a list of 11 granted utility patents which touch on such things as Apple TV and parallel computing on multiple processors.

Apple Granted a New Single & Multi-Touch Patent

Apple has received a major Granted Patent that generally relates to electronic devices with touch screen displays, and more particularly, to electronic devices that use one or more finger contacts to move on-screen objects without using a cursor to move the objects. Apple's in-depth touch related patent lists a whopping 36 major points in their summary alone. Apple's newly granted patent could provide Apple legal with added ammunition against current or future iDevice copycats.

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Apple's patent FIG. 5A illustrates an overhead view of an exemplary finger in contact with a touch screen display; FIG. 5B illustrates a side view of the finger and the touch screen of FIG. 5A; FIG. 5C illustrates the components of a touch area.

Today, Apple has received their second Granted Patent relating to user interfaces that employ a two-step security feature for unlocking the home screen of iDevices. Apple's first granted patent related to a dual slider locking approach was issued in June 2012. In February of this year, Apple won a patent dispute with Motorola relating to their initial patented unlock feature.

Apple's granted patent states that a method of controlling a device with a touch-sensitive display includes: displaying first and second images on the touch-sensitive display while the device is in a user-interface lock state; detecting contact with the touch-sensitive display; transitioning the device to a first active state corresponding to the first image if the detected contact corresponds to a predefined gesture with respect to the first image; and transitioning the device to a second active state distinct from the first active state if the detected contact corresponds to a predefined gesture with respect to the second image.

Apple credits Senior VP of iPhone Software Scott Forstall and team members Imran Chaudhri Imran, Bas Ording, Freddy Anzures, Marcel Van Os and Greg Christie as the inventors of this patent which was originally filed under application 13/204,572 in Q3 2011. The patent's history goes back to 2005.

Apple Received 3 Granted Design Patents Today

Apple credits Angela Suarez for the icon design in granted patent D668,674 noted above. The other designs could be found under patent numbersD668,666 and D668,672.

First Patent Round-Up

Over and above the granted patents that were specifically reported on today, we present you with links to 11 additional granted patents in our first granted patent round-up as follows:

8,285,901 - Communication between an accessory and a media player using an extended interface lingo

8,285,851 - Pairing a media server and a media client. This relates to Apple TV.

NOTICE:Patently Apple presents only a brief summary of granted patents with associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each Granted Patent is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any Granted Patent should be read in its entirety for full details. About Comments: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit comments.